Political Consideration and Development of Economic Relations, Economic Cooperation Capacities of Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan

Abstract

Azerbaijan has a very central and decisive role in the Iranian politics in the Caucasus. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and independence of Azerbaijan, relations between Tehran-Baku has usually been good with leaps and bounds during the past two decades. Factors such as having a shared history and culture and potentials for economic cooperation function as a stimulus for the development of bilateral relations. However, the relations are faced with obstacles and deterrents such as continuing disputes about the legal regime of the Caspian Sea, relations with Israel and the US and NATO accession by Azerbaijan are in place. Azerbaijani authorities also see the Islamic Republic of Iran's foreign policy towards the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh and extensive relations with Armenia as the most important obstacles to improved relations between the two countries. Therefore, despite some opportunities to improve bilateral relations between Tehran and Baku, challenging factors and restrictions have actually increased. This research provides a brief survey of the relations between Iran and Azerbaijan based on statistics of economic and trade relations, and the causes of development of economic relations and economic cooperation between Iran and Azerbaijan on the other hand, and uses descriptive and experimental method (statistical) to study capacity and balance of economic relations between the two countries given political considerations on the one hand.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n3s3p72